Quantity vs. quality of calories consumed

agree that calories in/out should only be thought of in terms of weight loss.

Why must it be one against the other? The two work great when you put them together...

I'm going with calorie in vs calorie out because one it works for me. Two because honestly I'm a full time student with a full time job I have literally one day a week that I have time to cook a really good nutritional meal and usually I've got a text book open next to the stove when I do that, though I do supplement my bad habits with things from the fruits and veggies section that I can portion out and toss in my bag for snacks etc. and 3 I'm southern I'm not quite ready to give up my 2 piece dark with slaw just yet though you can keep the biscuit.

I guess my point is America has made a huge industry out of weight loss. Weight watchers, lean cuisine, gyms, DVDs, trainers, and what not, bombard us constantly.

Yet you ever see a breakfast buffet in Europe? Its insane! Fresh croissants, nine types of house cured meats, homemade cheese, egg poaching machines, thick churned homemade butter, etc. and nobody is fat!

Can you spot the glaring difference between the two? Their food is natural! It came from an animal. Or they grew it in a fields without hormones. Or pesticides. Or other nasty stuff that enables big agriculture to build a bigger tomato, a fatter chicken, and a cow that requires less food.

I love my country and I'm not trying to paint this rosy picture of Europe like they have no social issues whatsoever. That's not the case. I just think as A nation Need to wake up and smell the (fair trade) coffee.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/340188-obesity-in-america-compared-to-europe/

The statistics show that European obesity isn't that much better than the U.S (63% vs 50%+)

Not only that, a higher rate of Europeans smoke than Americans (28% vs 19%)

http://www.realclearscience.com/journal_club/2012/11/10/who_smokes_more_americans_or_europeans_106403.html

Since over-eating is likely a habit, Europeans simply have a different bad habit.

EDIT: Added data for quick reference.

Why must it be one against the other? The two work great when you put them together...

^^^ they also have a bit of a tendency to go hand in hand as you can often eat MORE high quality food for the same amount of calories of crap

^^^^^^
This x 10000.

A Big Mac meal with a strawberry shake has 1575 calories. For that amount of calories I can have:

Protein shake for breakfast with US protein added almond milk and 2T flax seed meal
6 oz watermelon
Chicken sandwich loaded with veggies on whole wheat bread
Half cup pistachios
Another protein shake post workout same mix no flax seed
Homemade chicken scallopine with asparagus and mushrooms over whole wheat pasta.

That's what I've logged so far today by the way, though I haven't eaten dinner yet. Its right at 1600 calories.

I'll have another serving of fruit and probably some more pistachios too, but that's besides the point.

That's a lot of food, and would most likely fill me up. If I ate your food example, I would still have 2000 calories left for the day. I can not imagine eating the plan you laid out 2.5 times over. I would rather have mostly healthy choices and sprinkle in some "junk".

It also seems like this forum is big on caloric intake vs burn, and not big on quality of those calories.

Not sure why you would claim this. Lots of people at this forum are big on accuracy, and the fact is that you don't need to have the diet that is best from a nutrition standpoint to lose weight. Also, when someone is first starting, often it's baby steps, and getting an understanding of what you are eating and how to start getting the weight off may come before starting to adjust the diet for other purposes.

Also, since you mentioned processing. I will say again that being processed does not mean being bad from a nutritional POV. I love fresh local fruits and veggies as much as anyone, and am more likely to eat lots of them when I have a farm share or garden or shop at the green market, all of which I do, but in Chicago in the winter and early spring the availability of fresh, local fruits and vegetables is, obviously, limited at best. Thus, processed foods--like frozen vegetables--provide access to a healthier diet.

Similarly, there are plenty of fish not available locally, so I buy frozen fish. I don't think that packaging yogurt or other dairy products rob them of their nutritional value. If baby carrots are easier for me than peeling and chopping them myself, I don't see why that makes them no longer good for me. And if I want to buy a sandwich from a local (or even a chain) place that I know uses good ingredients, I don't see why it's no longer worth eating.

If weight loss is your one and only goal, then strictly speaking, calories in vs. Calories burned is a fine technique. We have all seen the studies where the patient are nothing but twinkles and lost weight. Is anybody else not disgusted by the overall style of food we as Americans eat? No other rich country in the world eats such garbage, and pays top dollar for it too!

Americans eat lots of different ways. I grew up on what I think of as the basic Midwestern diet and it was meat, potatoes (or sometimes some other carb), and vegetables (too often canned, sometimes corn counted), plus occasionally salad and bread. That's too carb heavy for me now, I'd definitely slot corn as a starch, not a veggie, etc., and I don't do canned veggies personally, but the essence of it really isn't that different from the healthy diet I attempt to eat now.

Also, how what does the average American diet, whatever it may be, affect how anyone here (where lots of people aren't even American) eat? I don't eat food I think is garbage, and I doubt many other people do, but YMMV.

Oh, are you claiming that people on MFP in general don't eat vegetables, especially those who say CICO is what matters for weight loss or those (like me) who say that processing is beside the point and eliminating foods is not necessary or particularly desireable? I think you'd be wrong. In fact, my argument is that one should focus on eating foods that are nutrient dense and not on eliminating foods. If you mostly fill up on the nutrient dense stuff the balance will correct itself, especially if you are watching calories.

Of course, some people need lots of calories. That's (due to his lifestyle and build) why my grandfather could eat far more starches than I ever have and not ever be overweight.

Calories in / out is what is needed to lose weight. Eating a 'healthy' diet is very subjectvie. However, I'll say this, by following calories in / out once I got down pretty low on my calorie intake I definitely didn't eat processed foods at all. Not so much because they're 'bad' but because they weren't going to fit into my overall calories / macros nearly as well as a salad and some chicken breast. I've never been big on processed food anyway but in order to lose weight, the calories are the most important thing.

As far as being healthy, I have a 54 bpm resting pulse 116/80 blood pressure and perfect blood work all around. I'm 41 people think I'm 30 or younger. My sister (age 42) is an organic farmer, she looks 10 years older than me easily. So 'quality' is not all it's cracked up to be sometimes IMO. I'm not saying go out and eat junk all day (trust me I don't do theat), but being all high and mighty about 'quality' without regards of quanitty is not the way either.

I'll note that my diary today probably doesn't look as stellar as it does sometimes. This is on purpose though, as I'm carbing up today. Thus the DD Coffee with sugar and cream and pop tarts which I haven't actually had in months.

This is a quote form a book entitled, The Omnivores Dilemma by Michael Pollan

It might at some insight...

"Americans are amazed to learn that some of the cultures that set their culinary course by the light of habit and pleasure rather then nutritional science and marketing are actually healthier then we are–that is, suffer a lower incidence of diet-related health troubles.

The French paradox is the most famous such case, though as Paul Rozin points out, the French don't regard the matter as paradoxical at all. We Americans resort to that term because the French experience–a population of wine-swilling cheese eaters with lower rates of heart disease and obesity–confounds our orthodoxy about food. That orthodoxy regards certain tasty foods as poisons (carbs now, fats then), failing to appreciate that how we eat, and even how we feel about eating, may in the end be just as important as what we eat. The French eat all sorts of supposedly unhealthy foods, but they do it according to a strict and stable set of rules: They eat small portions and don't go back for seconds; they don't snack; they seldom eat alone; and communal meals are long, leisurely affairs. In other words, the French culture of food successfully negotiates the omnivore's dilemma, allowing the French to enjoy their meals without ruining their health.

Perhaps because we have no such culture of food in America almost every question about eating is up for grabs. Fats or carbs? Three squares or continuous grazing? Raw or cooked? Organic or industrial? Veg or vegan? Meat or mock meat? Foods of astounding novelty fill the shelves of our supermarket, and the line between a food and a "nutritional supplement" has fogged to the point where people make meals of protein bars and shakes. Consuming these neo-pseudo-foods alone in our cars, we have become a nation of antinomian eaters, each of us struggling to work out our dietary salvation on our own. Is it any wonder American's suffer from so many eating disorders? In the absence of any lasting consensus about what and how and where to eat, the omnivore's dilemma has returned to America with an almost atavistic force."

–Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma

–Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma

LOVE Michael Pollan

IYet you ever see a breakfast buffet in Europe? Its insane! Fresh croissants, nine types of house cured meats, homemade cheese, egg poaching machines, thick churned homemade butter, etc. and nobody is fat!

Can you spot the glaring difference between the two? Their food is natural! It came from an animal. Or they grew it in a fields without hormones. Or pesticides. Or other nasty stuff that enables big agriculture to build a bigger tomato, a fatter chicken, and a cow that requires less food.

while i would agree that represents a better quality diet, and probably promotes better general health, i wouldn't assume it has much to do directly with them not being fat.

I don't think for a long shot most of the people on here are eating mostly junk, I just think some are missing the point. There is a difference between weight loss and eating for overall health and nutritional value. It is possible to eat with a Focus on both, but If that's not your goal or its not important to you, then by all means eat a Big Mac if it fits your caloric requirements.

I don't see how people (perhaps you need to be more specific) are "missing the point." Just because someone says that it is calories that matter for weight loss doesn't mean that person doesn't care about anything but calories or eat a healthy diet. I think you are jumping to conclusions.

I probably jumped to similar conclusions when I first started, but that was before I saw 18,000 posts along the lines of "I am eating 1200 calories but not losing weight, is it because I'm eating too much fruit?" or "I have been below my calories but just ate a gummi bear, am I going to gain weight?" Lots of people have goofy ideas about how weight loss works, created to a large extent by the diet industry you mention, and a lot of that is this rather magical idea that you have to eat the precise right mix of foods and if you do something as mundane as calories don't matter. That's why you get all the posts on calories, not because anyone is arguing in favor of the ridiculous straw man that it makes no difference at all, for any purpose, whether you decide to eat only twinkies and Big Macs. It's because (a) if trying to get to the bottom of why someone isn't losing, calories are primary, not the misplaced advice that you often see (oh, you need to cut out bread and diet soda!); and (b) it's quite possible to eat an overall healthy diet that meets nutritional considerations and yet still eat, well, bread and diet soda or even (on occasion) Big Macs.

Also, please tell me which of my prior posts suggests that I don't care about nutrition or want to eat only Big Macs, I'm curious.

Just for the record:

A Big Mac meal with a strawberry shake has 1575 calories.

Who is recommending this as a good way to lose weight on MFP?

For that amount of calories I can have:

Protein shake for breakfast with US protein added almond milk and 2T flax seed meal

Processed protein powder plus processed almond milk plus (I assume) processed flax seed. Nothing wrong with that--I had a protein shake this morning (with milk) before my run and then blueberries, broccoli, and cauliflower plus some yogurt (flavored, since it was all I had on hand, but quite likely from Europe!) after, and I too think that protein powder is one of those processed items that help me meet my nutrition goals, but it's why this focus on processed=bad is so misplaced.

As for the calories and the rest, looks good. Do you really think that makes you unique and that the rest of us are eating twinkies or McDonalds and just not eating anything else? My view is that if people start figuring out how to meet their calories within their own preferences--especially if they do think in terms of meeting nutrition needs, which I see recommended commonly here--they naturally start gravitating toward lots of whole foods, vegetables, and so on, because that's a much easier way to decrease calories and be satisfied. You don't need to insist that people cut out "processed" stuff, especially since there seems to be no rational agreed-upon definition of processed and, again, processed stuff may help meet nutritional needs.

But if you feel super good thinking that everyone else here (and all Americans) eat fast food 24/7, go for it.

I'm sure my protein powder is processed too, as is almond milk and flax seed meal, but all are healthy and all natural. But all natural protein powder and a pop tart are both processed foods by definition, yet one is far more processed, and one uses natural ingredients.

I don't think for a long shot most of the people on here are eating mostly junk, I just think some are missing the point. There is a difference between weight loss and eating for overall health and nutritional value. It is possible to eat with a Focus on both, but If that's not your goal or its not important to you, then by all means eat a Big Mac if it fits your caloric requirements.

I'll get off my soap box now.

Edit- and Michael pollan is the man.

What about a Big Mac makes them so unhealthy? Maybe I just don't feel like eating my life wondering if something is healthy enough to consume. I'd rather watch my calorie intake and eat things I enjoy than sacrifice foods I like because someone thinks they're bad for me.

^Agreed.

I also dislike how often the idea of the amount of calories seems to define whether something is "healthy" or not.

i think the original point is that american (and australian btw) generic supermarket foods are way more processed than european equivalent. example, chicken breast, standard chicken breast in oz or usa is twice as large as in europe, why? cos it pumped full of hormones and water when theres no need for it to be.
breads and fruit n veg etc is grown to last way longer on the shelves and so is 'processed' more in order to do so
its not so much about the big macs etc, u get them in every country but the standard foods u buy in supermarkets are way different in quality in the different countries

Having lived in Europe for 20 years, there are some differences in eating patterns. It is basically 3 square meals a day, with lunch being the largest meal. Dinner is usually a light meal which also helps with sleep. I remember having 1 hour off for lunch and eating the "Plat du jour".

You eat plentiful but not in excess and often it will also consist of a dessert. Now the big difference also is the size of the country. People are more apt to walking and taking public transportation, and certainly there is no eating in one's car.